Girls Are Rad: Alyse Black
It’s not often you find a singer whose been compared to both Kate Bush and Regina Spektor, but Alyse Black kinda does.
The hardcore and serious indie music fan has always had one fundamental flaw: the inability to admit that there’s nothing wrong with pop music. At least as long as said pop music is well written. And Alyse Black is one of those artists who can successfully accomplish this feat. Black embodies the jazz pop tendencies of contemporaries like Norah Jones and Katie Melua but with smokier vocals, more upbeat tempos and just a sheen of bubblegum pink. Sometimes the pop is a little too much to handle. Sometimes it will end up on your “guilty pleasures” playlist next to Tristan Prettyman and other guitar pop pixies. Other times, it’s just a damn good song.
Black grew up with a heavy musical theater influence and lived abroad for a while, though she was born in Seattle. After ignoring her musical urges, she studied business and communications at the University of Washington. Still caught in music’s fickle web, she would sing on the streets by Pike Place Market, until one day a local musician passed by and asked her to sing with his band at a club that night. Agreeing, she finally kicked off her career and released her debut album, Too Much & Too Lovely (Little Cherubine Records), in 2007. The album won Black first place in Billboard’s Annual World Song contest in the Jazz category for the song “Stood For Stand For” as well as an Independent Singer-Songwriter Award.
Obviously that fuel has kept Black going, since she self-released her sophomore album, Hold Onto This, this month. The album was recorded and produced by Ryan Hadlock (The Strokes, Ra Ra Riot, Blonde Redhead, The Gossip, the list goes on…) and presents a set of more sophisticated but playful songs whose highlights include opener “Strange (Used Me Up),” the gospel that is “Wild Child,” fever-inducing “Willowing,” and the Balkan-influenced track, “Blood & Wine,” where her world traveler’s blood is evident.
Black just finished up a U.S. tour with Aly Tadros, where the two drove cross-country in Tadros’ Toyota Highlander and crashed on friends’ couches, and will head to Europe next month to tour for the remainder of the year.
Posted by Leah Urbom on Oct 29, 2009 @ 9:00 am